was the headline for the Vox Populi, Vox Dei piece in the Asahi Evening News a general opinion column has, seemingly, a lot of different anonymous contributors.. This is a loose reply with few quotes but the same theme: If nine are found dead in a submarine: if the cause is apparently group suicide on the point of being saved: if this has echoes of a previous case what are we to think? Knowing as we do that the sailors came from north Korea, and that a similar case, with a larger sub had lead to a trail of bodies, killed sometimes in shoot-outs but often at their own hands, we must ask why the North Koreans would have such a code and what would cause them to follow it to death?
For the author here the incident is reminiscent of the 1941 Imperial Japanese Army battlefield code, senjin kun
Says that standing code,
" In life or death, let the sublime spirit of dedicated service to the country prevail. Transcend life and death in devoting yourself single-mindedly to the dedication of your duties:
" Don’t allow yourself to suffer the disgrace of being taken captive alive. Don’t leave the stigma of wrong battlefield behaviour affect your death." The article notes how the spirit was intensified into: "don’t be taken captive" and how group suicides on Saipan and Okinawa occurred among residents there. It does not mention of course the elements of coercion or intensive force involved. the chilling lack of respect for human life marks this as apart from our experience."
Ever read any first hand accounts such as those at the caves of Okinawa? For many the craziness of the suicides the depravity of the murders and the killing of those likely to fall into enmy hands is incredible. From Okinawa what I cannot forget though is how one individual thinking like the best of us spread the voice of reason, insisting on others to keep living, saving some children from being killed by soldiers now convinced all must die by blood..
What frightening straits they came to. Do you think we could find ourselves falling into such despair? What a code of stupidity to be undone. Yes surely the article notes lives were less valued than feathers. But here as in Russia we would expect to see people fighting for the last handhold of life! How lucky we are to avoid that creed: but what of it!? Are we wiser, or simply luckier in our times: that voice at Okinawa calls to me and says: if you were there: would you do as I did?
© TR 11th July 1998
© Teal Ray... (with acknowledgement to Steve Hartley, Uzbekistan and the camels for inspiration)...